Tatjana Dremelj

Tatjana Dremelj is a Slovenian pop singer and lyricist, born on 29 August 1952 in Celje. She began as a singer with local bands, and her first public performance was on Radio Celje with the New Swing Quartet, singing "Amazing Grace".

One of those bands grew into the quartet Ultra 4, which arrived on the Slovenian scene just after Bele vrane broke up; its members were Mladen Zorec, Pino Zagoričnik, Tatjana Dremelj and Majda Petan. In 1974 they made their Slovenska popevka debut with Vasko Repinc's "Potepuh", which won the third audience award, and they went on to all the big festivals of Yugoslavia, from Vesela jesen to Split and Zagrebfest. After Ultra split, she formed Ultra 3 with Daniela Podlesnik and Mladen Zorec. At the 1977 Pop Rally festival of young performers she won first place with Oto Pestner's "Moja pesmica", and Ultra 3 came third with his "Moj stari klavir in nova kitara".

In 1978 Pepel in kri invited her to work with them: she recorded three songs with the band for Radio Slovenija, toured the Soviet Union with them and sang "Glasajte za nas" with them at Vaš šlager sezone in Sarajevo. At Slovenska popevka 1978 her "Vračam se nazaj domov" by Ati Soss came second and won the international jury's award and the Silver Guitar of Stop magazine. At Melodije morja in sonca she sang "Vračam se v Piran" (1979), "Daj mi srce" (1980), which took the fourth audience award, and "Moj mornar" (1983), awarded for the best arrangement.

In 1983 she represented Yugoslav radio and television at the International Festival of Maltese Song with "Spomni se, prijatelj", arranged by Mojmir Sepe, and won the international jury's first prize. The same year she sang in the Yugoslav Eurovision selection with the group Hazard. She worked with composers such as Jože Privšek, Mojmir Sepe, Tadej Hrušovar, Jani Golob and Sašo Fajon, and with singers including Elda Viler, Ditka Haberl, Ivo Mojzer and Alfi Nipič; with Miro Ungar she made the duet single "San Salito" in 1979.

She stepped away from music in 1989 and came back in 1991 with the music theatre project Dva obraza, founded with the Celje actress Anica Kumer. Her last CD, Zaljubljena, came out on Helidon in 1996; the title song spent almost a month at number one on radio charts, and she made a video for "Dala sem vse" with director Vinči Vogue Anžlovar. For her 70th birthday in 2022 Helidon released a vinyl LP of her love songs, called simply Tatjana Dremelj.